Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Science, Kunming, Yunnan Province 650223, People's Republic of China.
J Insect Sci. 2010;10:142. doi: 10.1673/031.010.14102.
When vespine wasps, Vespa velutina Lepeletier (Hymenoptera: Vespidae), hawk (capture) bees at their nest entrances alerted and poised guards of Apis cerana cerana F. and Apis mellifera ligustica Spinola (Hymenoptera: Apidae) have average thoracic temperatures slightly above 24° C. Many additional worker bees of A. cerana, but not A. mellifera, are recruited to augment the guard bee cohort and begin wing-shimmering and body-rocking, and the average thoracic temperature rises to 29.8 ± 1.6° C. If the wasps persist hawking, about 30 guard bees of A. cerana that have raised their thoracic temperatures to 31.4 ± 0.9° C strike out at a wasp and form a ball around it. Within about three minutes the core temperature of the heat-balling A. cerana guard bees reaches about 46° C, which is above the lethal limit of the wasps, which are therefore killed. Although guard bees of A. mellifera do not exhibit the serial behavioural and physiological changes of A. cerana, they may also heat-ball hawking wasps. Here, the differences in the sequence of changes in the behaviour and temperature during "resting" and "heat-balling" by A. cerana and A. mellifera are reported.
当黄胡蜂（Vespa velutina Lepeletier）在它们的巢穴入口处捕食（捕捉）蜜蜂时， alerted 和 poised 的守卫蜂（Apis cerana cerana F. 和 Apis mellifera ligustica Spinola）（膜翅目：Apidae）的胸部温度平均略高于 24°C。许多额外的 A. cerana 工蜂，但不是 A. mellifera，被招募来增加守卫蜂的数量，并开始翅膀闪烁和身体摇晃，平均胸部温度上升到 29.8 ± 1.6°C。如果黄蜂继续捕食，大约 30 只胸部温度升高到 31.4 ± 0.9°C 的 A. cerana 守卫蜂会向黄蜂发起攻击，并形成一个围绕它的球。在大约三分钟内， heat-balling A. cerana 守卫蜂的核心温度达到约 46°C，这超过了黄蜂的致死极限，因此黄蜂被杀死。尽管 A. mellifera 的守卫蜂没有表现出 A. cerana 的连续行为和生理变化，但它们也可能对捕食黄蜂 heat-ball。这里报告了 A. cerana 和 A. mellifera 在“休息”和“heat-balling”期间行为和温度变化顺序的差异。
